{"id":15918,"date":"2012-04-24T08:29:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T15:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=15918"},"modified":"2012-04-24T08:29:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T15:29:11","slug":"a-sucker-for-suckers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=15918","title":{"rendered":"A Sucker for Suckers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m currently about a month into an internship with USFWS in Klamath Falls, OR, and having an absolutely amazing time.\u00a0 Our first month has been spent with the USGS working with a couple species of suckers (see the blogpost \u2018A Fish Called Sucker<\/a>\u2019 to get the low-down from another intern here in Klamath Falls and some good pictures of the beautiful creature itself).\u00a0 We are collecting data for a mark-recapture study by inserting pit tags into captured fish and monitoring their movements with pit tag arrays.\u00a0 Fish collection occurs at night on the lake with trammel nets, during the day at a weir set up across a river that flows into the lake, and trammel nets set by hand at some springs on the edge of the lake where many suckers spawn.\u00a0 Data must be downloaded from the remote sites by hand, which has lead to some interesting travel around the Klamath Basin.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had a chance to learn how pit-tag fish, ID suckers, operate the neat field ranger computers, and the basics of driving the motor boat.\u00a0 The fish begin to move upriver as soon temperatures rise; Thursday there were no fish, while Friday was gorgeously sunny with about 240 fish caught.\u00a0 The fish are mostly between 55-70 cm long \u2013 it\u2019s amazing to see a seething pool of that many big fish in the trap!\u00a0 Apparently that\u2019s on the low end as well\u2026we\u2019re looking forward to higher numbers next week!\n\t\t